Product Description

Sequel to "The Ragged Astronauts" and set 24 years later, this book tells the story of the battles between the peoples of Land and their sister planet of Overland.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #272812 in Books
• Published on: 1989-05-11
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 294 pages

Customer Reviews

Shaw does it again
When I saw that Bob Shaw, one of my favourite authors, was writing a trilogy I was not impressed. I thought he'd 'sold out' to popular market trends. However, I did read The Ragged Astronauts and enjoyed it even if I didn't think it was one of his best... Bob Shaw is incapable of writing Sword-and-sorcery: he is too logical a thinker. He has also always realised that even galactic super-heroes have wives and kids. This theme has appeared in a number of his novels. I find his portrayal of male/female relationships particularly accurate and insightful but this probably depends on your personal psychology.

What is the book about? Well, the setting is a solar system with twin planets, Land and Overland, and third, Farland. Most of the action takes place on Overland. In The Ragged Astronauts there had been a mass migration from Land to Overland because of a plague caused by Ptertha, floating creatures which burst and release poisonous spores when they come near a human. The society is at a level of technology equivalent to somewhere in our 18th or 19th century but because the twin planets are close together it is possible to fly a balloon from one to the other (the atmosphere is stretched into an hour-glass shape between them).

Not everyone escaped to Overland and early in The Wooden Spaceships a balloon arrives from Land carrying humans who have mutated slightly to resist the plague and they declare war between the planets. Toller is recruited to organise the defence of Overland. A parallel plot is developed about a group of farmers on the far side of Land who settle in an area where nobody else will live. The farmers have disturbing dreams and strange things happen.

The whole story comes to a satisfying ending and there is absolutely no indication of another sequel (for reasons that you'll realise if you read the book). But we knew it would be a trilogy: so sequel there would be.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, more so than "The Ragged Astronauts" and I couldn't wait for the next and final volume of the series.

A wooden spaceship has to be better than a hot-air balloon.
In this second of the trilogy, the technology has moved on, wooden fighting spaceships replace the fragile hot-air balloons. Everyone has to move to the next door planet; can you imagine evacuating your home planet with just a few wooden spaceships?
Bob Shaw makes it believable!
I tend to have to read all three of these books if I pick up just one of them. The previous book is The Ragged Astronauts, and the last is The Fugitive Worlds. They are an essential part of any decent SF collection.
I agree wholeheartedly with the other reviewer, "rick".